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Comment by InclinedPlane | Hacker News Reader

They obviously knew. Most people I talked to knew that this was coming regardless of the bundle sale, and most people in the press seemed to know as well. The big question is whether it bought them anything. $5 million is a lot for an indie studio, but it's a drop in the bucket for a company with annual losses 30x that, and annual revenue over half a billion.

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It will buy them a lot of influence with potential purchasers or investors. Being able to say that they were able to sell old games in such a high volume is unusual for a company in such dire financial straits. The sale also will help to build excitement and get more journalistic attention for their next games, which is probably also the reason they have been giving away Metro: 2033 via Facebook.

If this is the plan it's quite desperate, but it just could work.

Yeah, I think it was really to show brand value for Saints Row, Company of Heroes, Metro 2033, etc. I think all of the games in the bundle currently have sequels being developed.

Saints Row 3 is likely what sold many of the bundle copies. It's not an old game, it's a well-reviewed 1 year old AAA game that sells for 40 dollars on steam.

That's why I bought the bundle for $5. I hadn't heard of it much before but I knew it was a fairly new game compared to the others.

Yes and no. It shows that their games lineup is still relevant and popular. But on the other hand that level of popularity is still orders of magnitude too low to support their levels of expenses. Maybe their purchaser, which appears to be Clearlake, thinks they can shrink expenses enough to make them profitable.

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